People
Pellegrini Fire Ecology Lab
The Pellegrini lab is committed to providing a healthy working environment that promotes creativity, hard work, and balance with life commitments. We are a diverse group and have a lot of fun.
Principal Investigator | Adam Pellegrini
Adam Pellegrini, Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth System Science is interested in understanding how ecosystems work, where is the nearest surf, and what is being cooked for dinner. Adam received his PhD from Princeton University in 2016, was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University until 2020, a faculty member at Cambridge between 2020-2025 and at Stanford since 2025.
Postdoctoral Researcher | Courtney Currier
Courtney Currier is a postdoctoral researcher leading a large project on understanding how fire and grazing change ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling. She received her PhD from Arizona State University and joined the Pellegrini group in the fall of 2023.
Postdoctoral Researcher | Katy Faulkner
Katy Faulkner is a postdoctoral researcher leading a large project on understanding stabilization of soil organic carbon during peatland degredation during agricultural intensification. Katy received her PhD from the University of Warwick and joined the Pellegrini group in the spring of 2023.
Postdoctoral researcher | Johanna Schoenecker
Johanna Schoenecker is a postdoctoral researcher working on a UK Space Agency grant using remote sensing to map wildfire trends and how severity is linked with regeneration using Landsat data in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2025.
Postdoctoral Researcher | Khadiza Begum
Khadiza Begum is a postdoctoral researcher leading a research project on land use transitions of pasture and grassland systems. She uses process-based models to simulate changes in greenhouse gas emissions under different emission management schemes
Laborator Technician | Charlotte Dick
Charlotte Dick is a laboratory technician working on the European Research Council grant surveying fire and grazing effects across savanna-grasslands worldwide. She received her BA from University of Cambridge in 2024.
PhD student | Juliana Kohli
Juliana Kohli is a PhD student interested in how peatlands recover following fires and the role of prescribed burning in managing peatlands. Her work takes place in the Cairngorms in Scotland.
Laboratory Technician | Christian Parinello
Christian is a laboratory technician working on the European Research Council grant surveying fire and grazing effects on savanna-grasslands worldwide. He is a keen plant ecologist getting his hands dirty with >1000 of root samples.
PhD student | Dave Encarnation
Dave Encarnation is a PhD student interested in sustainable food production and optimising carbon retention with yield production along an agricultural supply chain.
PhD student | Robert Powell
Robert Powell is a PhD student interested in nature based climate solutions in rangelands. Robert is developing models to optimise areas for carbon sequestration and emission reductions in livestock grazing systems.
Lab alums
Sarah Baker, was a postdoctoral researcher in the Pellegrini group and now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Exeter. Sarah mapped out UK fire-driven carbon emissions and revealed that dry peatlands are the main determinant of when years are ‘bad’ emission years.
Sarayu Manoj was a research assistant in the Pellegrini group. She led a project using life cycle analyses to understand net-emission mitigation from regenerative agriculture.
Johanna Schoenecker was a PhD student (now a postdoctoral researcher in the group) working on understanding forest recovery from wildfires in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2025.
Jacob Watts, was an MPhil student in the Pellegrini group and now a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. Jacob researchers how root traits of plants could predict their response to fire and overall functional niches.